


In Two With Your Mind (The Patient Smile Remix)

by magicallaw



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-15
Updated: 2010-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicallaw/pseuds/magicallaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can't see this future, and he knows, even as he marks through the list, that he can never account for everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Two With Your Mind (The Patient Smile Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wojelah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wojelah/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Sting Most Sharp](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/728) by Wojelah. 



> Thanks to Nonelvis beta reading.

He can't see this future, and he knows, even as he marks through the list, that he can never account for everything; the 'ifs,' the 'buts' and the 'maybes'. Three months of moments that will change him and reshape him, the moments after that will put him back together; they all spin through his mind in a matter of seconds. He sees what he thought was never possible.

He jumps and twists and runs around the console. There has to be something he can do to forget this future that he saw. He throws the watch from hand to hand; it feels like it's burning. Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?

He doesn't hear Martha return to the console room and he is a little startled. He watches her with bags in her hands – one for him and one for her. He shouts at her for taking so long, for daring to think so practically. He winces inside as he knows he's shouting because of something he's about to do to her, not because of what she's done. He does so again when she looks at him like she knows that too.

In an instant he forgets that he knows the possibilities that await them both. He worries now instead. "Don't," Martha says, dropping their bags and taking his hand. "Maybe I can keep us both safe."

The Doctor sees a smile that he's become so reliant on these last few months. "Yeah," he says. He clears his throat. "I've left you something. Here. You might need it."

"Right," she says. "Anything else I need to know?"

"Remember I said it was going to hurt?" Martha nods, but he doubts she understands. "Are you ready?" Because suppose he _can _account for everything.

Suppose he did.

++

 

Martha spends her first day or two in Farringham focussed and working. She learns names and places and allows herself to feel more confident that this could not go wrong.

Then she gets to know John Smith.

The first time he smiles at her - this stranger in front of her - he does so as if he remembers her: the moon, the motorway, the Daleks. They are in his study, just the two of them; their own little hideaway. She forgets herself for a moment as she's so happy to see something that she recognises and she smiles back.

She gets ready to leave. "Will that be all, sir?"

He looks up from his paper and studies the now clean room. He smiles again, this time as John Smith. "Thank you, Martha." He pauses." Whatever would I do without you?" Martha thinks back to that first smile and wonders which one of them just asked her that.

++

 

What does being human mean anyway? How has it changed him? She notices things, just tiny little things more often than not, but she thinks she's figuring it out. The threat of temptation that has lingered over this entire planet since Day One. But does that make him different from a Time Lord? This John Smith who looks at her like ... like she's someone else entirely.

It doesn't happen often, but she sees it.

She is no longer his maid, nor a companion. He is male and she is female and she knows enough about biology that she knows that look.

Then it's almost as if John Smith grows up and comes alive and remembers Martha the maid, who has worked for him for years. Three whole days go by and he doesn't even make eye contact.

Then he sees someone else. A nurse.

The Doctor and his nurse. How ironic, Martha thinks. She knows he's not really the Doctor but this really isn't good.

Maybe being human is having the ability to walk away. She wonders if this man will have the strength to do just that in a few months' time.

++

 

By now she's lost count of how many times she's watched the tape the Doctor left her. She knows every instruction by heart and yet she still has no idea what to do. How do you stop someone from falling in love anyway? Martha has experienced a lot of impossible things since she met the Doctor but she doubts that she'll be adding that one to the list any time soon.

She stops the tape and sits on the jump seat. Everything he says is so black and white, it's no use whatsoever. She's done everything he asked of her (surely anyone can forgive a pear? Just one measly pear) but what if she can't do the one thing he needs her to do most of all: bring him back.

She finds them together in his rooms again – Joan and John. Another perfect fit, she supposes. When she's thrown out she thinks of what she's gone through these last few months and ponders if what she'll have to do next will be harder. He had told her to improvise. Maybe that was Time Lord for 'grow a really thick skin'.

+++

 

The lack of physical pain when he changes back leaves him feeling numb. He leaves the cottage quickly and does what needs to be done. He walks straight past Martha who has waited and waited and would continue to wait if needed. The fact that he knows this makes him stop. He looks back. "Give me 27 minutes and meet me back at the TARDIS."

When it is light again he begins to regain the feeling in his limbs – the dull ache that he had expected. This hurts now. It's cold and it's raining and he can feel every drop hit him as though it were heavier than just water.

He pauses at the bottom of the hill but he's anxious to keep moving as he can see Martha watching him. He gets closer and he sees that smile again. It's sort of evolved from the one that he clung to when he was last in the TARDIS, but it's still his Martha, waiting for him yet again.

"Do you think I did the right thing?" he asks her later.

"I always think you do the right thing."

"Even when I caused all of that?"

"Well what's the alternative?"

He was afraid that what he had asked of her would change her, make her unrecognisable. But in that moment, when he recognises himself instead, he realises that he didn't account for everything at all.

And boy does it hurt.


End file.
